Urban Hawks

I got a text that Bobby was on the Con Ed building, so I finished up at work and walked over to Union Square.  Bobby had left, but I thought I saw another hawk on the north of the tower.  In error, I saw my sighting was a door, once someone lent me binoculars.  But luckily, I found Pip about 10 feet from my false sighting.

I has a business meeting early downtown, so I didn’t have my camera at work.  I took a roundtrip cab ride home and back to get my equipment.  When I returned to the park, it was after 8 p.m.  Pip was eating a rodent and Bobby was on top of a nearby water tank.  They exchanged places and eventually both ended up going west on 16th Street.  This is the second time this has happened at dusk, so they must be roosting nearby.

Many of the former webcam watchers of the Washington Square nest meet up on Sunday mornings to watch Pip.  Today, they got lucky and found her perched on top of an antenna next to the water tank for 2 Washington Square Village. 

Ironically, this building is one of my pet peeves about New York University.  The four buildings regularly put out their garbage in plastic trash bags, rather than dumpsters and their gardens are full of rodents and cockroaches.  Rather than improve this situation by improving sanitation practices, N.Y.U. puts out poisons that put hawks at risk.

The N.Y.U. hawk webcam was sponsored by the university’s sustainability department.  Unfortunately, it looks like this group isn’t interested in studying the impacts of the university’s own practices on hawks in the area.  I guess basic sanitation, reducing poison usage, and evaluating the types of poisons being used, isn’t as trendy as reducing bottled water usage.

Tonight, the male of the Washington Square pair, Bobby, was seen hunting in Washington Square Park in the early evening, and most likely was seen on top of the W of the W Union Square Hotel at sunset.

I was only able to get pictures in Union Square from far away, so I’m not 100% sure of my I.D.